Standard multiuser voice-over-IP (“VOIP”) systems, such as are employed in massive multiplayer online games (“MMOs”), suffer drawbacks when two or more users or players are talking at the same time on the same channel. Even if users attempt to avoid such “talking over each other”, the inherent latency in transmission and playback defeats such attempts. The problem is accentuated in multichannel systems as speakers listening to and transmitting in different channels may unknowingly talk over each other as heard by a listener who is listening to both channels simultaneously.
As an example, and referring to FIG. 1, a system 10 is shown in which a game server 12 services a number of game clients 14, 16, 18. The game server 12 runs the game engine application, maintains the overall game virtual environment, and sends information to the game clients pertinent to the player characters and environment local to the client.
The game clients may send messages to each other, which may include text or audio. FIG. 2 illustrates a prior art media message, in particular an audio message 22, which has some extent over time as measured by time axis 20. If multiple messages arrive and are played back simultaneously, or even partially overlap, a listener will deleteriously and confusingly hear the two messages played back at the same time, at least during the overlap. For example, FIG. 3 illustrates multiple media messages, i.e., audio messages 22, 24, and 26 which partially overlap. The messages are all shown as being within a single channel X. At point 28, a listener of channel X would just hear the audio message 22. At time 32, the listener of channel X would hear the audio messages 22 and 24 overlap. And at time 34, the listener of channel X would hear the audio messages 22, 24, and 26 simultaneously play. Hearing three messages at once is typically very confusing for a listener. FIG. 4 illustrates a situation similar to that of FIG. 3, but where multiple channels are present. In this case, for example, messages 36 and 38 do not overlap within their channel X, but message 36 overlaps with messages 42 and 44 from channel Y, and message 38 of channel X overlaps with message 44 from channel Y.